‘Social’ Intelligence: Have an Opinion

‘What’s your favourite ice cream flavour?’

There are so many right answers to that question: chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, pistachio (never tried it myself but people say that such a flavour does exist and is ‘utterly divine’).

Yet, many people are often tempted to give the one wrong answer to the above question:

I don’t know.

I mean, dear Lord, of course you DO know! You just don’t want to say it. But why wouldn’t you; what’s stopping you from sharing with those around what your opinion on flavoured ice cream is?

There are several reasons, namely:

You can’t be bothered

That the WORST reason because it simply means that you are an apathetic person who has not got an opinion about anything; do you realise how horrifying that is?

From a purely social point of view, who would want to speak to a person that has no opinion of his own?

The answer: those are so socially desperate that they start looking for people whom they can manipulate into sharing their own opinion.

Are those the type of people that you want to hang out with? If so, then stop reading now.

You don’t feel confident enough

...to share that your favourite ice cream flavour is Thai Tiger Prawn (beat that, pistachios!!!) because you have not tried any other flavours. But seriously, leaving ice cream aside, when talking on a topic that you are not that familiar with, you often choose to sit in a corner, quietly and be an active listener (which is a paradox in itself regardless of what any psychologist tells you).

Would it not make sense, though, to form an opinion WHILE you listen rather than blending in with the wall?

Mark my words, people will appreciate it a lot more if you ask them questions, form an opinion and try to take part in the discussion.

They’ll know that you are actually THERE (as opposed to say, NOWHERE).

You don’t want to look like a fool

People are sometimes afraid that their opinion will not sit well with the that of the crowd. Since I’ve never been able to grasp this whole concept of fitting in, I’ll just go ahead and ask the question:

Why on Earth would you want to be a part of the crowd!?

Would you not rather form a well- informed, logically sound and perfectly structured opinion which will, in turn, entice others to follow you in your tracks?

It’s better to be a crow than to follow the crowd; mainly because there are bound to be other crows around.

You have several opinions on the matter

That can’t actually work. Just because you answer ‘I like both strawberry and chocolate’ does not mean that you have two opinions; it simply means that your answer is ‘my favourite flavours of ice cream are strawberry and chocolate’.

Do be careful when structuring your arguments; follow the following simple pattern:

A + B = AB

IF your conclusion turns out to be C, id est something completely unrelated to your premises, then something somewhere has gone terribly, terribly wrong.

Also, do not try to tailor your opinion to various situations; not because it’s morally wrong (who cares about morals nowadays, eh...? The banks are, at least...NOT) but because it’s incredibly difficult to remember what you have said in front of whom.

That will ultimately lead to a situation in which you will get so muddled up that you will share a different opinion with the same person; this tends to make you look like a complete idiot and an unbearable hypocrite.

I don’t think you want that, do you? If you do, stop reading now.

In the light of the above, having in an opinion is of utmost importance if you want to get anywhere in today’s world. It’s true that it’s a lot easier and safer to be a conformist; however, conformists are most often mediocre and tend to survive rather than live.

So, let me ask you again:

What is your favourite ice cream flavour?

Mine’s vanilla; because you can mix it up with any of the other ones.

Controversial? No, ice cream. Geesh!